Choosing, Picking, and Reason to Choose

This paper addresses the problem of hard choices agents confront in scenarios referred to as “Hard Cases.” A key feature of Hard Cases is that an agent is presented with multiple options, each supported by reasons, but these reasons run out when considered against the reasons for other options. Another feature of Hard Cases is that it seems wrong for an agent to arbitrarily pick one option. Several views explain these features of Hard Cases, focusing primarily on the value relation between options, with discussions limited to the relata—namely, reasons for each option. However, reasons relevant to a choice encompass more than the set of reasons for individual options. After defining ‘choosing’ as distinct from ‘picking’ and introducing the notion of a ‘reason to choose,’ I argue that the reason to choose plays a role in what makes a case a Hard Case, and it is not necessarily grounded in any of the options but in the choice itself.